The NADA fair is home to the some of the youngest, and most surprising artists and gallerists during Art Basel week, and is often described as a respite from the big-named, shiny, high-altitude atmosphere of the main fair. Dealers and collectors come to NADA searching out the new artists they think have the most potential, reveling in the discovery.

The act of buying and selling is no stranger to animalistic metaphors, and when describing the opening atmosphere gallerists used several: “The mood of the crowd was intense,” Amanda Schmitt of the Hole Gallery told Art Observed: “people definitely came in like vultures.”

Gallerist Bill Powers with Lucien Smith’s Cash Counter, Half Gallery

Last year The Hole Gallery had two twin booths sell out, says Schmitt. This year they’re on track to compete with that record. Adrian from the James Fuentes Gallery told Art Observed that NADA brings “the best crowd ever, super cool all around. We see friends, familiar faces. NADA tends to bring the people we like best – the most creative and adventurous of the collectors.”

47Canal

In an effort to keep things fresh, Adrian explained that gallery owner James Fuentes brought in some brand new artists, including Kamau Amu Patton, with whom they just started working.

Another gallery from the Lower East Side, The Half Gallery, had Huma Bhabha, Sam Falls, René Ricard, and Lucien Smith reinterpret Andy Warhol’s one dollar bills, which were originally designed for a charity gambling event and printed on real currency paper. Fall designed a tilting stack of folded squares with his bills. “A house of cards,” Said Bill Powers, co-owner of Half. “I like having accidental fair commentary, so you can see how tenuous the system is.”